The Subaquatic Cognition Loop

Can Distributed Neural Fields Form Between Marine Life and Ocean Currents?

Abstract

While much of neuroscience confines cognition to the boundaries of skull and brain, recent research in embodied cognition and ecological dynamics suggests that cognitive processes may not only be extended across tools or social systems, but potentially into natural geophysical systems. This paper proposes the Subaquatic Cognition Loop (SCL): a speculative model in which intelligent marine animals—such as octopuses, dolphins, and certain fish, may co-encode environmental information within large-scale water current structures through bioelectric fields, pheromonal dispersal, and acoustic memory. In this hypothesis, cognitive traces left in fluidic motion patterns may serve as a short-term distributed working memory, a kind of “liquid mind” scaffolded across both biology and oceanography. The paper integrates data from animal neuroethology, fluid dynamics, and information theory, and outlines potential methods for empirical investigation.